Summer camp on a lake

Fugro’s annual hydrographic summer camp

For the 2nd year running Fugro and Teledyne-CARIS have jointly organised a practical survey week for students from the Ocean Technology program at the Maritime Institute Willem Barentsz in the Netherlands.

Twenty 3rd year students were introduced to an entire lake survey process from vessel and equipment mobilisation, calibration and data-acquisition, to data processing and charting.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) being prepared for take off.

Despite the market downturn, it's still very important that we maintain close links with the colleges and universities that we recruit from. It was great working together with such motivated students just starting their career.

Merijn Jacops - Survey Equipment & Software Purchasing Manager, Fugro

Z-boat being prepared for surveying.

Perfect location

For a week the Vlietland lake, close to Fugro headquarters in Leidschendam, offered the perfect location for test surveying and training. “With students and staff camping in tents and using various workshop locations within walking distance, we organised a perfect week.” says Merijn Jacops, initiator of the Fugro hydrographic summer camp.

Covering various surveying aspects

After last year's great success this year we wanted to show the students the many different aspects of coastal or near shore surveying,” explains Merijn. “With the help of the program partners we introduced some interesting surveying aspects.” The 7-metre long shallow draft vessel, Fugro Calibrator was used to collect multibeam data from the lake using the new T-50 multibeam system sponsored by Teledyne Reson. An Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) called the Z-boat was provided by Teledyne-Oceanscience to survey the shallow parts of the lake and Skeye BV was present to collect onshore data with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). All the acquired data was processed at workshops run by CARIS, resulting in a full map of the surveyed area.

During the week the students were also exposed to demonstrations of some of Fugro’s innovations, such as the latest development on INS and Vision-based technology and the 3Direct™ system that measures the inclination and movement of structures.

Connecting with students

This year’s summer camp attracted a lot of attention and students had the opportunity to network with technical experts and managers from both Fugro and Teledyne who were well represented throughout the whole week. “Despite the market downturn, it's still very important that we maintain close links with the colleges and universities that we recruit from. It was great working together with such motivated students just starting their career,” explains Merijn. One of the students added: “It has been a very pleasant week, never thought this week would give me so much more experience, the only thing Fugro could improve next year would be the weather!"